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Sounds like the beginning of a poem, doesn't it?

Facies leonina, tum-pa tum-pa tum-pa-pam.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facies_leonina

Compression and destruction of nerve fibres are responsible for hypersensitive areas which soon become numb, for atrophy and contracture of the muscles of the hands and feet, and for the wasting of the tissues of the fingers and toes. The eybrows and lashes fall out. thickening fo the eyebrows and facial folds and deepening of the natural furrows. The lips and ears are often irregularly thickened and prominent.
Edited by Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat
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Could you provide those of us that don't speak German with an English version?

 

But isn't the technology I proposed technically magic? Because some people know the procedure to build it, according to some ancient manuscripts, but nobody knows how it works. And it uses enchantments and holy Builder scriptures as key part of the technical construction process.

I hadn't noticed the mentions of Builder scriptures before. However, I would avoid having Builder scriptures be a part of the strictly necessary preparations (although superstitious members of the Guild could still require their usage), instead actually relying on ancient manuscripts for the actual functionality. Using magic to rearrange suitable organic materials is a great idea though; I like it.

 

As an addendum to my description of magic, I'd like to add that I also prefer a lack of overt magic. For example, seeing spells cast should be relatively rare, but you might encounter 3-4 meter tall cyclops (or for that matter, undead) you have to sneak past.

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It says roughly that the "lionface" is an indicator for the endstadium of leper. The mdical term for this is "Facies Leonina" which means exactly the same. Not only the face is affected, as there are other known effects which afflicts the hands and this was to be considered as turning humans into animals.

Gerhard

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, I called my classmates and determined that I won't miss too much if I don't come to any classes tomorrow. On such occasion I decided to sit down, relax a bit, and write about my idea of zombification in the TDM universe. It's a good thing I looked at the previous posts, too, because I almost forgot the hot chocolate. Hmm, as I'm stirring it I'm thinking of a formula that would tell me how much more power I'd have to apply to the spoon if I made the cup baffled.

 

My dream then consisted of a stereotypical industrial era environment, in some imaginary conflux of a research park, industrial park, and university town (brick buildings, concnrete factories, etc). I was walking, mostly among some industrial structural ruins, when the realization that it's best for me not to be seen by the masses started entering my conciousness. Incidentally, then, night started giving way to sunrise, and the masses in the form of both students, researchers, and factory workers, started strolling the summer park pathways to their respective destinations. At that moment I noticed I was standing on hilly terrain, near a path but closer to a small brick building, which at its corner had an iron sheetmetal covering a small hole near the ground about 4 by 4 feet. I ducked in.

 

The inside did not surprise me, but did englighten me as to my nature. The halls had exposed concrete and ash blocks with patchy appearance. They were narrow, short, as were the rooms. The ceiling, walls, and floor were of a light gray yellowish tones. The doors were thin, wooden, the kind you see on pre-1940's laboratories. Light was streaming in through the few holes and slits near the ceiling close to the exterior walls. The few tiny rooms into which I looked were crammed with cots with people. People like me.

 

They contain outright unwelcome foreign organisms such as Ascaris lumbricoides: http://arpa.allenpress.com/arpaonline/?req...AL%3E2.0.CO%3B2

or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascariasis

Infected with parasites as this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminth

The immune response to worm infection in humans is a Th2 response in the majority of cases. This results in inflammation of the gut and results in cyst-like structures forming around the egg deposits throughout the body.

parasites cause some infections: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutaneous_larva_migrans

various mites live beneath the skin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyletiellosis

They've got 'haole rot' or 'pityriasis' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinea_versicolor

and flesh-eating-bacteria: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necrotizing_fasciitis

All these things combined and merged through a filter of horror and fantasy and overall Thiefiness.

 

For a look at how some of the people looked, here's a site that contains stereoscopic images of some common graphic skin infections. [WARNING] http://poetry.rotten.com/clinic/

here are three faces with infections [sAFE TO LOOK] from that site:

http://poetry.rotten.com/clinic/index1.html

http://poetry.rotten.com/clinic/index3.html

http://poetry.rotten.com/clinic/index4.html

You wood agree with me most resemble our idea of "zombies"

An important fact that needn't be forgotten is mental retardation frequently accompanies the above maladies.

Also fungal infections can severely damage the internal organs while keeping them functional, making the appearance of a "rotting from the inside" person.

 

So the people there, and I, were severely pustulo-crustaceous, immuno-deficient, parasite-infested with fungi with flaking skin. How do you like this preliminary concept outline of an abolishment of necessity of magic?

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  • 2 weeks later...
Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat: No, I was referring to evil (and thus right and wrong) as an absolute moral standard that things can be judged by.
Evil is a relative concept, not relative on a one-dimensisonal sliding scale, but relative in a multi-dimensional fabric of morals.

 

I personally think radioactive decay is an excellent metaphor for necromancy and death.
Physics doesn't work in metaphors.

 

So, can we all agree now that zombies are not as much magic, as ostracized plagued people with terminal illnesses who look and smell bad, lost most functions, and have an onset of mental retardation? They are concentrated in sewers and crypts and cemetaries exactly for the same reason homeless people and various elements of the underworld are concentrated in sewers, crypts and cemetaries (at least in europe prior to WWII), mainly they need a space to inhabit withtout coming into contact with the real society. We all love the Paris sewers on this forum, right? I've been hoping to successfully recreate that in my FM for the past 4 years. Apparently Moscow also has a nice combination of centuries-old crypts, sewers, bunkers, unused metro-lines, cathedral tunnels, and kremlin caves. If you don't mind wasting the time, check this out or anything on moscow spelunking: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/970658/posts

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How does that explain holy water?

 

Personally I prefer to just accept that it's magic, or science so mysterious that it might as well be magic, and leave it at that. It makes things a lot simpler. This is a fictional universe we're talking about; explaining it won't get us anywhere, unlike real-world science. :)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Physics doesn't work in metaphors.

Of course not--magic does! :laugh:

 

So, can we all agree now that zombies are not as much magic, as ostracized plagued people with terminal illnesses who look and smell bad, lost most functions, and have an onset of mental retardation?

I actually think it would be cooler to have two types (or more!) of zombies: normal, undead zombies, plague zombies (28 Days Later-style), real-world zombies ("voodoo"), etc. Hell, I think we should have all types of undead! (Except perhaps vampires...) It'd provide a lot more variety, that's for sure! :D

 

How does that explain holy water?

It doesn't. Then again, if we have more than one type of zombie, who says all of them have to be affected by holy water? ;)

 

Personally I prefer to just accept that it's magic, or science so mysterious that it might as well be magic, and leave it at that.

Exactly! But, that doesn't mean we can't provide some explanation...

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yep, midichlorians were a blow.

 

Nya, I'm not familiar with 28 days later, could you explain how it would be in game?

Also, I have a fondness for fictional vampires, I even had a dream two years ago of being in a dystopic future city where my friend Dracula drives by in a limo, and gives me a lift. He is fat, sweaty, with gelled hair, wairs a thick gold chain, and a hawaiian shirt. This month I'm playing the Dracula T2 FM campaign, and I can't finish the first level still.

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yep, midichlorians were a blow.

Sucky explanations are much worse than no explanation.

 

Nya, I'm not familiar with 28 days later, could you explain how it would be in game?

In 28 Days Later, the zombies came from a rabies super-virus. The infected were still very much alive, extremely aggressive, and apparently ignorant of basic instincts like eating and pain. Mainly, they were different from classic zombies in that they ran really fast and were exactly as strong/durable as enraged human.

 

In gameplay terms, they would be more similar to fast headcrab zombies than Thief zombies, with the potentially added threat of becoming infected yourself (perhaps working something like a poison). I see this sort of zombie as either being a cross between a necrotic bacterial/fungal infection and rabies, or as a worm (either one big one or lots of little ones). Make them have an aversion to (strong) light, and have them wander/stumble around aimlessly until they catch sight of a human (that way players aren't left questioning why the disease spreads like wildfire). Since they're dumb (rabies attacks higher brain functions), why not have them lose track of the player if they lose sight of them, perhaps only being able to track them through smell (cross a stream and hide up a tree). It might be interesting to have be able to climb and jump to reach the player though... :D

 

I'd say it'd work better for gameplay if it were somewhat hard to become infected, such as requiring blood, pus or saliva to enter a wound (e.g., biting). They'd charge in, slashing and clawing to try and break your defenses down, then grab a hold of you and try to infect you with a bite to an exposed area--preferably near a major vein or artery (such as the neck). A player would have to resist their grapple and push them away, and if more than one grabs you at once, it's pretty much game over.

 

Something like this would work best if it were in contrast to slow, ordinary zombies, I think. It'd definitely encourage sneaking if infection meant game-over, though. How do you kill a charging enemy with a sword if distance is key to survival? Unfortunately, zombies like this and grappling will have to wait

 

Also, I have a fondness for fictional vampires, I even had a dream two years ago of being in a dystopic future city where my friend Dracula drives by in a limo, and gives me a lift. He is fat, sweaty, with gelled hair, wairs a thick gold chain, and a hawaiian shirt. This month I'm playing the Dracula T2 FM campaign, and I can't finish the first level still.

I have a love of vampires too, but when it comes to the undead, they're overused, trumped up, and generally cliched. Vampires have become stereotyped, and they have completely lost their edge as monsters. They are no longer the monsters and tragic figures of lore. In modern culture, vampires are sexy, bad-ass, Don Juans--and so help you god if you try to depict them otherwise. They don't really have a place amongst the pantheon of undead; they work much better alone.

 

Zombies also tend to be stereotyped to extremes--thank you, George Romero--but unlike vampires, they play well with others. Seeing a zombie side-by-side with a lich and other skeletal creatures has become almost expected in fantasy, but seeing a vampire next to a lich feels disjoint--to a reader it smacks of the author having thrown in "everything and the kitchen sink." Vampires have to be relatively few and far between to be effective. In a world with other undead, the reader immediately wonders why vampires aren't as common as dirt. Zombies never have to be of an infectious nature (instead they can be necromantic), but vampires always are--their bite is always how they spread, and they have to feed often. Besides, having vampires leads too much credence to Builder witch-hunts.

 

I'd love to see some missions with vampires, don't get me wrong. I just don't think they can really belong in the main TDM universe.

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The infection bloody well ought to be fast. In the movie, it was on the order of several hours to a day. In game, it should happen as fast as believably possible, although we may want to have visible signs of infection occur well before the conversion (such as flesh starting to decay, acting dumber, somewhat more aggressive). :)

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I personally would prefer to avoid extensive "scientific" explanations of the undead. At best it just takes the fun and mystery out of things, and at worst the explanations sound unscientific and illogical despite their best attempts. I'm sorry, but I find myself unable to believe chemistry creating sentience, or radiation creating zombies. About the extent of an explanation that I'd want is "the person was cursed or their body was left on tainted land, so they became undead".

 

Also, the sorts of zombies I'd like to see would be nixed by "scientific" explanations such as diseases. Imagine a zombie where you hack it in two, and the legs stumble about while the upper body quickly drags itself towards you (sort of like HL2 zombies), so you blast the torso with a fire-arrow, and body parts go flying in all directions... then you notice the arms are crawling towards you... you step back to buy some time, accidentally stumbling over the twitching head, pull back your bow, and impale one hand with a broadhead, pinning it to the ground. While the one hand continues to writhe in place, you quickly impale the other. Killing such zombies without holy water would be a much more involved (and perhaps gruesome) endeavor than in Thief!

NOTE: I'm not suggesting TDM has the kinds of zombies described above - it currently doesn't.

 

I completely agree with Nyarlathotep on vampires.

 

Edit: I could have sworn the infection in "28 days later" was more in a matter of minutes. Remember when that girl's father got a drop of blood in his eye?

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Edit: I could have sworn the infection in "28 days later" was more in a matter of minutes. Remember when that girl's father got a drop of blood in his eye?

Yeah, the infection of "Rage" occurred within a minute, both for the girl's father at the army blockade, and for the activists who were bit by the infected monkeys at the beginning of the movie. Poetic license if you ask me.

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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Zombies also tend to be stereotyped to extremes--thank you, George Romero--but unlike vampires, they play well with others. Seeing a zombie side-by-side with a lich and other skeletal creatures has become almost expected in fantasy, but seeing a vampire next to a lich feels disjoint--to a reader it smacks of the author having thrown in "everything and the kitchen sink."

 

I'd love to see some missions with vampires, don't get me wrong. I just don't think they can really belong in the main TDM universe.

 

I agree, vamps and lich are too "rich" of an undead character to have them running about like zombies. They are much more powerful and probably territorial to a degree. I think they can work if they are major characters with clearly defined roles.

 

But I dont understand why you think vamps aren't part of the main TDM universe. If there is a main universe. I think they fit well into the Precursor inspired maps that will come out, I for one really love undead, the creepier the better, inverted hammers and speaking backwards gibberish.

 

A map idea: a lich and a vamp are fighting for control of a castle and one hires the Thief to infiltrate the castle to steal a powerful object and turn the tide of the battle. Once accomplished, the Thief finds himself betrayed by the victor and cast into a horrid dungeon to await death. He manages to escape but then has to rearm bit by bit throughout the castle and then confront his betrayer. Basically a Constantine scenario but shorter storyline.

Edited by Maximius
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(and I'm another person who would like to see steambeasts left out. At the very least, I'm pushing for them to be far less sentient than Thief)

What do you suggest? I'm interested.

 

I didn't think they appeared very sentient as it was... they had the same ability to determine friend or foe as the security cameras (something touched on in the dialogue during the game, but never explained fully) and just reacted with canned dialogue from their Karras recording spindles. The traps had the ability to rotated toward the target and then fire, so the robots also were able to do this. As for the little bots running for help, I never really saw one head directly to a person, they just seemed to freak out and run to some random destination.

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That's all any of the AI ever did - the "run for help" is only the AI running to the closest flee point set in Dromed. It's just that a well designed mission will have the flee points be right where stationary guard posts are or something like that, so that the alerted AI will then, in fact, alert the guards.

shadowdark50.gif keep50.gif
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I personally would prefer to avoid extensive "scientific" explanations of the undead. At best it just takes the fun and mystery out of things, and at worst the explanations sound unscientific and illogical despite their best attempts. I'm sorry, but I find myself unable to believe chemistry creating sentience, or radiation creating zombies.
With the ideas I'm proposing the magic is not removed from the explanation, it just is relocated to a smaller scale. Imagine magic and religious magic both act by statistics in that the more improbable a thing is to happen the more rarely it happens. The normality of statistics is altered by using magic, and moreso the more powerful the user. For example a small atom has a much higher probability of materializing out of the blue than a larger atom, and more still than a whole body. So instead of forces on the order of tens of newtons materializing to control whatever magical thing they control, and instead of electrical currents materializing at high voltage in a specific formation with high negentropy, they would manifest on a small scale and be amplified into action by conventional energy. It's just like with TDM magic it's much easier to take control of something controlled by a microchip than the equivalent thing controlled by relays.
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I personally would prefer to avoid extensive "scientific" explanations of the undead. At best it just takes the fun and mystery out of things, and at worst the explanations sound unscientific and illogical despite their best attempts. I'm sorry, but I find myself unable to believe chemistry creating sentience, or radiation creating zombies. About the extent of an explanation that I'd want is "the person was cursed or their body was left on tainted land, so they became undead".

Hear, hear!

 

With the ideas I'm proposing the magic is not removed from the explanation, it just is relocated to a smaller scale. Imagine magic and religious magic both act by statistics in that the more improbable a thing is to happen the more rarely it happens. The normality of statistics is altered by using magic, and moreso the more powerful the user. For example a small atom has a much higher probability of materializing out of the blue than a larger atom, and more still than a whole body. So instead of forces on the order of tens of newtons materializing to control whatever magical thing they control, and instead of electrical currents materializing at high voltage in a specific formation with high negentropy, they would manifest on a small scale and be amplified into action by conventional energy. It's just like with TDM magic it's much easier to take control of something controlled by a microchip than the equivalent thing controlled by relays.

Erm... no. Let's not do that.

 

Magic needs to be mysterious. If it wasn't mysterious then it wouldn't be magic, it would be science, and last time I checked we weren't making a mad scientist romp.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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I personally would prefer to avoid extensive "scientific" explanations of the undead. At best it just takes the fun and mystery out of things, and at worst the explanations sound unscientific and illogical despite their best attempts. I'm sorry, but I find myself unable to believe chemistry creating sentience, or radiation creating zombies. About the extent of an explanation that I'd want is "the person was cursed or their body was left on tainted land, so they became undead".

I can understand that, but with my radiation example, the "taint" of the land would be radioactive material. Besides, when I wrote my explanation of necromancy as radiation, I didn't intend it to be pseudoscience. Instead, I intended necromancy to be a magic analogous to radiation, and perhaps even replacing it. It still behaves much like ordinary radiation, but also just happens to raise the dead.

 

Also, the sorts of zombies I'd like to see would be nixed by "scientific" explanations such as diseases. Imagine a zombie where you hack it in two, and the legs stumble about while the upper body quickly drags itself towards you (sort of like HL2 zombies), so you blast the torso with a fire-arrow, and body parts go flying in all directions... then you notice the arms are crawling towards you... you step back to buy some time, accidentally stumbling over the twitching head, pull back your bow, and impale one hand with a broadhead, pinning it to the ground. While the one hand continues to writhe in place, you quickly impale the other. Killing such zombies without holy water would be a much more involved (and perhaps gruesome) endeavor than in Thief!

NOTE: I'm not suggesting TDM has the kinds of zombies described above - it currently doesn't.

I like that idea. I want that idea in game--eventually. I suggested that these infected zombies are only one type of zombie. The first type is the above, the second the infected, and the third I mentioned was the real-world voodoo zombie. Who says our zombies have to fit in only one stereotype? :D

 

Edit: I could have sworn the infection in "28 days later" was more in a matter of minutes. Remember when that girl's father got a drop of blood in his eye?

Oh. I haven't actually seen the movie; I've just had every goddamn frame spoiled to me by everyone and their grandmother. Still, it's bloody ridiculous.

 

I agree, vamps and lich are too "rich" of an undead character to have them running about like zombies. They are much more powerful and probably territorial to a degree. I think they can work if they are major characters with clearly defined roles.

That does make sense, but I've always thought of liches as being somewhat anonymous, that is, unless they have managed to gain significant infamy/notoriety in life/unlife. Liches are essentially the final stage of a necromancer--a man who has quite literally sacrificed everything for his art. Liches strike me as naturally being loners. In life, they secluded themselves from society (if they were not outright ostracized) because of what they did. In death, they avoid society because of what they have become. As powerful as they are, they are still vulnerable to a properly equipped foe (holy water, etc), and there is no disguise they can take. A lich would only risk his unlife venturing into society if there is something significant for them to gain (read: MacGuffin), or if they have reason to be so confident or bold (i.e., the villain).

 

Vampires, by contrast, blend almost imperceptibly into society, with rare literary exception--indeed, they are almost always presented as being socialites. They tend to group into covens (or at least, they tend to collect sires), and they enslave humans to do their bidding. They're almost always extremely powerful (more than a match for a lich), and even younger vampires are still very powerful. All in all, in gameplay terms, vampires tend to lend themselves to pure cheese (unless of course you're playing as one). If a mapper insists on having a vampire, I'd much rather him keep it off-screen.

 

I really don't see an acceptable solution, except to outright exclude vampires. Integrating them into TDM would require either severely altering them (to the point that everyone hates because they're no longer really vampires) or resigning ourselves to cheese. Vampires can't be included in any sort of general way in TDM; they really only can be given a proper treatment by a mapper.

 

But I dont understand why you think vamps aren't part of the main TDM universe. If there is a main universe. I think they fit well into the Precursor inspired maps that will come out, I for one really love undead, the creepier the better, inverted hammers and speaking backwards gibberish.

By "main universe," I am referring specifically to a potential TDM campaign--which is what this thread is oriented around. Besides, we have no control over what outside mappers put in their maps, nor should we necessarily want to. If a mapper wants vampires in his map, who am I to stop them?

 

A map idea: a lich and a vamp are fighting for control of a castle and one hires the Thief to infiltrate the castle to steal a powerful object and turn the tide of the battle. Once accomplished, the Thief finds himself betrayed by the victor and cast into a horrid dungeon to await death. He manages to escape but then has to rearm bit by bit throughout the castle and then confront his betrayer. Basically a Constantine scenario but shorter storyline.

Sounds great. :)

 

I had an idea for a map where the player would be betrayed and thrown into the arena (perhaps as a more "lenient" punishment than torturing the thief). The first day at the area, the player would be searched, having to figure out a way to hide his lockpick, and put into a day-long "rigorous training session" (basically a chance for the player to scope out the place a bit and if need-be practice combat). Each day, the player would be forced to fight three battles of escalating difficulty, immediately being thrown back into his cell afterwards. To beat the mission, the player is simply required to get out of the arena alive and recover their equipment, either by battling their way to freedom or by escaping into the countryside. Of course, on expert, the player is still required not to kill anyone. :P

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I don't think scientific explanations for "magical" things is bad, as long as it's done really well. It even can open up new ideas for whatever it is you're trying to explain.

 

I saw a pretend documentary about dragons, they used the latest special effects and had some really cool and plausable scientific explanations for fire breathing and flight, and their eco system, and also goes a long way to explain why they seem to appear in legend in different cultures, and the different appearances (due to different evolution). The whole thing was filmed as if they were really discovering it, and major parts re-enacted like in Walking With The Dinosaurs.

 

It was so good, I plan on hunting it down and buying it.

 

Also I like all the different explanations for zombies. There's the magically re-animated type, where the soul or the magic is animating the bones like a puppet, and you get this slow, loping, moaning pitiful and yet horrifying creature.

Then there's the mutated virus type, where the being is still alive only in the basic sense, but some virus has taken control of the basic motor funcitons and survival instincts, and you get this vicious, roaring, super-human monster, like in Dawn of the Dead.

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With the ideas I'm proposing the magic is not removed from the explanation, it just is relocated to a smaller scale. Imagine magic and religious magic both act by statistics in that the more improbable a thing is to happen the more rarely it happens. The normality of statistics is altered by using magic, and moreso the more powerful the user. For example a small atom has a much higher probability of materializing out of the blue than a larger atom, and more still than a whole body. So instead of forces on the order of tens of newtons materializing to control whatever magical thing they control, and instead of electrical currents materializing at high voltage in a specific formation with high negentropy, they would manifest on a small scale and be amplified into action by conventional energy. It's just like with TDM magic it's much easier to take control of something controlled by a microchip than the equivalent thing controlled by relays.

 

 

These are some interesting ideas Hammer but I tend to agree with Gildoran, for the purposes of immersion I think magical processes are either best left unexplained OR by appealing to explanations that dovetail with popular conceptions of magic. For example, the elemental theme of the Precursor games was a good fit for me, cause elemental magic actually exists in the RL world (the practice anyway) so most are familiar with it and its the right mix of woo and actual explanation. Enough to see larger patterns but not enough to give one a sense of any deeper understanding. Now, if you were to make an FM that had a engineers text describing such theories, or some wizards scrolls, or an alchemist lecturing some students, that would be a nice addition. I don't want the Thief world explained to me too much, but if some of its inhabitants try to explain it, thats really good detail IMO and would only accentuate the atmosphere.

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That does make sense, but I've always thought of liches as being somewhat anonymous, that is, unless they have managed to gain significant infamy/notoriety in life/unlife. Liches are essentially the final stage of a necromancer--a man who has quite literally sacrificed everything for his art. Liches strike me as naturally being loners. In life, they secluded themselves from society (if they were not outright ostracized) because of what they did. In death, they avoid society because of what they have become. As powerful as they are, they are still vulnerable to a properly equipped foe (holy water, etc), and there is no disguise they can take. A lich would only risk his unlife venturing into society if there is something significant for them to gain (read: MacGuffin), or if they have reason to be so confident or bold (i.e., the villain).

 

I have to admit Im not as familiar with lichs as some other character types. I can see them being loners from the world but surrounding themselves with other simple undead, zombies and maybe some haunts to protect their lairs.

 

Vampires, by contrast, blend almost imperceptibly into society, with rare literary exception--indeed, they are almost always presented as being socialites. They tend to group into covens (or at least, they tend to collect sires), and they enslave humans to do their bidding. They're almost always extremely powerful (more than a match for a lich), and even younger vampires are still very powerful. All in all, in gameplay terms, vampires tend to lend themselves to pure cheese (unless of course you're playing as one). If a mapper insists on having a vampire, I'd much rather him keep it off-screen.

 

I really don't see an acceptable solution, except to outright exclude vampires. Integrating them into TDM would require either severely altering them (to the point that everyone hates because they're no longer really vampires) or resigning ourselves to cheese. Vampires can't be included in any sort of general way in TDM; they really only can be given a proper treatment by a mapper.

 

Are they really always a match for a lich? I tend to agree with your description of vamps but a necromancer is a powerful foe as well and I would think that a master of death magic would have some abilities versus the undead, even if he was undead himself. Lichs as I have encountered them are still sentient, unlike zombies and haunts, and would seem quite capable of defending themselves against a vamp. Vampires can get too soap opera-ish but they can be toned down, made less sexy and more unnatural. And their can be rankings of vamps, its one thing to bump into a young local vamp dwelling in a sewer tunnel and lurking in back alleys, terrified of a mob with torches and stakes, and another to crawl into the tomb of a seven hundred year old vampire who can crush you with a glance.

 

 

I like your fm idea, it sounds like a good time trying to fight to survive then have to desperately seek out your kit to escape.

 

BTW you will be interested in this, a few years ago at a book sale here in Philly I found the two book set of the adventures of Varney the Vampire, a character from the British "pennydreadfulls" from the late 19th century. The books were reprints obviously but they look really neat, I never read them but Ill drag them out now.

Edited by Maximius
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